Posted on Friday, 7 October 2016

After years of planning, Tim and Pete finally make it to western Canada, where aboriginal history, dinosaurs and plenty of canoeing await.

Canada had always held a deep fascination for my friend Pete and I – the western parts in particular. We fancied ourselves as Great Outdoorsy types, Mountain Men – the sorts who might go and live in the wilderness like Christopher McCandless did in Into the Wild – although hopefully with a happier outcome.

But our outdoor experiences up until Canada had been less glamorous: more Bill Oddie than Bear Grylls. Not to say we were total city slickers: we'd canoed on the Wye River and had had a bash at Tough Mudder – but nothing we could do in this fair isle would prepare us for the rugged vastness of western Canada.

I had become single in recent months, giving me free reign and Pete had placated his wife over a long period regarding the perceived threats (once again, Bill Oddie was played up, Bear Grylls down). And so we finally booked our trip – after years of talking about it.

We had the gear – but did we have any idea? We would soon find out.

After catching up with an old friend in Vancouver we were keen to leave the concrete embrace of the western seaboard and head east. After a lifetime mostly spent in England, nothing really prepares you for the sheer size of Canada: and not just the open space; the mountains, the trees – even the animals are oversized.

God's Mountain

We hired an off-roader and headed north east along Route 5, before arriving at God's Mountain bed and breakfast, a small, quirky establishment run by an English woman. Set in a vineyard above a lake, deer graze around about this bucolic hideaway. True to our desire to be mountain men (kind of) we chose one of their roofless rooms – which, as the name suggests, are open to the sky (except the area directly under the beds).

Revelstoke

Next day we visited Revelstoke in search of adrenaline. Here, a 1.4km pipe had been laid on a mountainside. You can sit in a little car and slide all the way down this long metal tube at speeds of up to 26mph. What a rush! It was a slightly theme-parky way to see the stunning scenery – but very much worth it.

Columbia Wetlands Adventures

Moving further east we came to our next destination: Columbia Wetlands Adventures. Here we experienced the serene and beautiful Columbia River by canoe. While we always enjoyed our time on the Wye, it was incomparable to this mighty river. It feels so far away from civilisation here – one feels that nature is all powerful; humans come a distant second.

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

After spending the weekend in the charming city of Calgary, we were ready to get back out into nature. Both I and Pete had developed an interest in Aboriginal history as our knowledge of Canada grew, so it was natural that we visited one of the most intriguing sites of Canada's ancient indigenous peoples: Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump.

This is a rocky ridge which ranges up to 10m high. For 5,500 years aboriginals stampeded buffalo over the cliff edge. Why? To break their legs so that they could be butchered and processed at a nearby camp. Dressing up as coyotes and wolves, the natives would harry and drive the buffalo towards the perilous ridge. This 1,000 foot long ridge is as beautiful as it is dramatic, marking where the prairies rise up into the Rocky Mountains. It served as a reminder of the long, rich history of this land – which stretches back many millennia before the Europeans arrived.

Dinosaur Provincial Park

But I and Pete were destined to go even further back in time – in the Dinosaur Provincial Park. Booking into the pleasant Stage Coach Inn in Patricia, we set about our two day exploration of these amazing badlands. The wild, slightly menacing landscape of this park was precisely the sort of place you would expect to see a beast from 100 million years ago.

The area is one of the richest dinosaur fossil locales on the planet. No less than 40 dinosaurs have been found in these otherworldly valleys, with hundreds more specimens having been removed and exhibited in museums the world over.

This remarkable UNESCO World Heritage Site offers even more historical perspective than that of Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. Some of my Canadian friends complain that their country is historically barren compared to the UK – but places like this prove it has a vast and engrossing history.

Into the Wild…

However, our trip was really about the here and now – and enjoying Canada's invigorating, bountiful Great Outdoors. We were heading north, for fishing, camping – and of course canoeing.

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